THE RIGHT TO DISAGREE
The notion that public policy critics cannot be wrong is misconceived, writes BOLAJI ADEBIYI
The recent disagreement between President Bola Tinubu and a delegation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria on the country’s state of affairs ought to be normal in a democratic setting, but for the misconceived notion that public policy critics cannot be wrong. This misconception is evident in the sharp critique, by habitual government critics, of the president’s spokespersons’ response to John Cardinal Onaiyekan’s account of last week’s presidential meeting with the bishops.
It was Cardinal Onaiyekan who brought the disagreement into the open during an interview with ARISE TV, a national broadcast network with a wide international audience. In describing the meeting, the widely respected clergyman portrayed the president as aloof and insulated from the grave situation facing the vast majority of the people he governs. He thought the president was arrogant for insisting on macroeconomic stability brought about by his reforms, which has not translated into improved living standards for the people. Finally, he opined that the president appeared bent on winning the 2027 general election despite growing concerns about the integrity of the electoral umpire.
Whilst the status of the presidential audience is unclear, the responses from the president’s minders suggest that the presidency considered the clergyman’s action inappropriate, given the one-sided presentation of the encounter, which portrayed their principal in a bad light. This is even more so when there was no official communique that would have enabled the public to conduct an objective analysis of what transpired. Coming from a man with access to a religious constituency of over 30 million adherents, the presidential spokesmen are justified in issuing a firm rebuttal to the clergyman’s rebuke of their principal in an impending electioneering season.
Opinions are divided over the public spat, as expected. Critics, largely opposition politicians and their allies, argue that the Cardinal spoke truth to power, condemning the presidential response as insensitive and intolerant of public opinion. The Presidency and its supporters argue that public policy analysts and critics must speak from a position of factual knowledge, rejecting the notion of all-knowing public policy critics who cannot be wrong.
Snippets from the meeting’s accounts on both sides suggest that President Tinubu disagreed with the Catholic clergymen’s positions on all the issues raised, whether the economy, security, or the electoral process. Whilst the bishops contended that the economic reforms were not improving the people’s quality of life, the president thought otherwise, even when he admitted the attendant challenges that were being addressed. The clergy believed that the country was bleeding; the president countered that there were significant improvements in tackling insecurity. Finally, the Catholic leaders opined that the electoral umpire had lost public confidence. The president was not persuaded and asked for the facts behind their claim.
Basically, the issues are not new. They have been in the public domain since the economic reforms were inaugurated at the start of the Tinubu administration. The reforms were accompanied by high inflation, with dire consequences for energy, food and transport costs, which adversely affected the mass of the people’s living standards. The federal government acknowledged the pain and responded with palliative measures, promising that relief would come as the economy stabilises. Three years later, there is near consensus among global rating agencies and acclaimed economists that the nation’s macroeconomy has stabilised and positioned Nigeria for growth and sustainable development via global private investment.
The economists who rated the reforms positively cited economic indicators showing that inflation is trending downward, forex has stabilised, external reserves are climbing at unprecedented levels, and foreign direct investment has grown phenomenally. However, there is also a consensus that these microeconomic improvements have not translated into enhanced living standards for the majority of the people, a development that President Tinubu has seized every speaking opportunity to acknowledge and to pledge his administration’s commitment to alleviating.
The Catholic bishops’ visit to the Presidential Villa to restate this notorious fact, with Cardinal Onaiyekan’s insinuation that President Tinubu, surrounded by sycophantic aides, is oblivious to it, could seem more like playing to the gallery than speaking truth to power. Their position would have been meritorious if they had proposed an alternative strategy for the president to translate macroeconomic gains into better living standards for the people. After all, the central issue of widespread hunger and poverty is essentially a microeconomic matter within the remit of subnational governments at the state and local levels. Otherwise, the bishops ought to have addressed the contradiction between the quantum leap in the Federation Accounts Allocation to the states, arising from the reforms, and the underperformance of subnational economies, which is breeding these widespread complaints.
This cup-is-half-empty perspective, which apparently shaped the bishops’ opinion on the economy, permeated their country-is-bleeding perception of the nation’s security situation. Again, the clerics stated the obvious, discountenancing the government’s efforts to address the challenge and its incremental success. President Tinubu’s disagreement with them is not without merit.
Non-state actors’ violent attacks on the people have been met with maximum force by the nation’s security forces. Cooperation among intelligence agencies has been aligned with the increasing efficiency of the military forces, resulting in the decimation of the rank and file of bandits, terrorists, and religious insurgents. The leadership of the marauders has virtually been sought out and destroyed, to the admiration of even US President Donald Trump.
All of these came on the back of improved defence and security funding, which has enabled the security forces to be better equipped with more efficient technology and military platforms. There have been structural reforms, too, including the push for state police to increase security presence across the country, the expansion of forest guards to reclaim ungoverned spaces, an increase in army divisions from eight to twelve to reduce response times, presidential approval for the recruitment of more boots on the ground, and enhanced emoluments for the security forces.
The bishops’ failure to recognise these significant strides, preferring to highlight daily reports of violence while ignoring the deluge of media coverage of the security forces’ counter-insurgency successes, could not have been acceptable to a president who could not have solved decades-old crises in three years.
However, it is significant that neither Cardinal Onaiyekan’s account nor those of the clerics suggested any hostility from President Tinubu during the encounter, except that the president stood his ground and robustly defended his policies and programmes.
Beyond the policy disagreement, which is normal in a democratic setting, the challenge seems to be the failure of the men of God and their supporters to recognise that their right to criticise the president does not preclude his freedom to disagree with their views. This appears to be the bug that has bitten perennial government critics and opposition politicians, who cannot take as much as they give.
Adebiyi, a Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, writes from Abuja
